


The nightmare unravels

by Hotaru_Tomoe



Series: The English job [15]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Almost First Kiss, Fluff, Gen, H.I.A.T.U.S. challenge, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Not S3/TAB/S4 compliant, Pre-Slash, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-27 23:50:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10819332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotaru_Tomoe/pseuds/Hotaru_Tomoe
Summary: John has recently returned to live with Sherlock, and he realizes that his friend has nightmares, but Sherlock doesn't want to talk about it. A small fire forces the two to sleep in John's room and finally they will talk.





	The nightmare unravels

**Author's Note:**

> Written for May [H.I.A.T.U.S.](https://hiatustory.tumblr.com/post/159876365198/hello-were-very-excited-to-announce-the-next) Johnlock challenge.  
> Again, I sed two prompts: an experiment went wrong (well, it's an accident, in my story) and they both have to sleep upstairs in John’s room, and Sherlock suffers from nightmares after he returns from his time being ‘dead’ and can only sleep properly if John sleeps with him.
> 
> The title is a song of John 5. It seemed fitting.

John looks into the mirror hanging above the mantelpiece and tries to fix his tie for the umpteenth time.  
"Sherlock, I have a date tonight, so please don’t call me unless there's an emergency."  
"Like me dying of boredom?"  
Sherlock is stretched theatrically on his armchair, like a swooning victorian heroine, his face covered by an arm.  
"This is impossible," John laughs.  
"How do you know?"  
"I'm a doctor, remember? It’s scientifically impossible to die of boredom."  
"I'm not so sure."  
John laughs again, then grunts in annoyance: the knot of the tie is horrible and he can’t fix it.  
Without saying a word, Sherlock gets up, comes behind him, gently bats John's hands away, and fixes the knot. John looks fascinated at the movement of his long fingers and their eyes meet in the mirror. Sherlock's hands move away from his neck, but hang on his shoulders in what might seem like a caress, and John does nothing to break the moment.  
It’s the angry sound of claxon to do that.  
Sherlock clears his throat and sits back, while John touches the tie with his fingers.  
"Uh… thank you, now it's perfect."  
"You’re welcome."  
"I thought you hated ties."  
"I was forced to wear them in spite of it."  
"When... when you were on mission?"  
Sherlock nods silently, then returns to his dramatic pose.  
Three months have passed since Sherlock’s return after he faked his death.  
At first it was horrible: there were punches, insults, screams, and even some tears, but John's anger finally faded away; he listened to Sherlock's story and his motivations, accepted his apologies and forgave him.  
Eventually, getting back to live with him at Baker Street was almost natural.  
However, there are moments, like this, when John thinks that Sherlock didn’t tell him everything, that there is something that disturbs him, because he’s reluctant to talk. This is not Sherlock: Sherlock is the one who boasts of being smarter than the whole Moriarty criminal organization, the one who wants to explain in detail how he has dismantled it.  
Of course Sherlock told him many things about his mission, but John is sure he’s hiding something, and he doesn’t know how to deal with that.  
"Sherlock..."  
"Your date, you will be late."  
"Right... I'll see you tomorrow morning, then."  
"Oh, are you so optimistic?" Sherlock jokes.  
"I'm not Three Continents Watson for nothing," he replies. "I'll give you a detailed account."  
Sherlock squirms on the armchair and grunts: "Please, don’t do that."  
But maybe he’s wrong, John says to himself while he’s waiting for a cab on the sidewalk, because most of the times Sherlock seems his old self.  
The date doesn’t go exactly according to his plans, and John finds himself on the same sidewalk in Baker Street shortly after midnight, fuming: Pamela, his date, turned out to be a fiery supporter of the Conservative party. John isn’t a man used to mix politics and romantic dates and tries to pretend that everything is fine, but when Pamela asserts that gays and lesbians should be subjected to hormonal treatment as in 50's, John decides that the evening ends there.  
He notices that the lights in their flat are off, so he climbs the stairs without making a noise, believing that Sherlock is already in bed. The battery of his cellphone is almost dead, so he recovers the charger near his armchair, plugs it, and gets up: Sherlock is seated on the window sill, in the dark, hidden by the curtain, and John is so surprised that the cellphone almost slips out of his hand.  
"Jesus, you gave me a heart attack!” he protests “Why didn’t you say anything?”  
"Sorry John, I was thinking," Sherlock whispered flatly, and his voice is so low that John is struggling to hear him.  
"Okay." John leans the phone on the armchair and shrugs. He knows that when Sherlock is in his Mind Palace, he is barely aware of the reality around him.  
"I guess the evening didn’t go as you wanted," Sherlock says in a slightly higher voice. "Was she an idiot?"  
"She supports Tories."  
"What did I say?"  
John laughs and his anger for the bad date slips away.  
"Do you want me to switch on the light?"  
"No!” Sherlock responds precipitously “No, thank you, you don’t need to," he adds, quieter.  
"Are you all right?"  
"Yes, yes, as I told you I'm just thinking."  
"Okay, okay then."  
It's just when he's in bed, almost asleep, that John wonders what Sherlock is thinking about, as they haven’t any case at the moment.  
  
One night John wakes up with a dry throat: a patient gave him a bottle of Italian red wine and he and Sherlock drank it over dinner. Excellent wine, but maybe John had a glass too much and now he’s terribly thirsty. He snorts, kicks off the blankets and gets up to drink a glass of water.  
As he’s going downstairs, he hears Sherlock playing the violin, a sad, slow and melancholy melody, but the sound isn’t as loud as usual, indeed John didn’t hear it from his bedroom; the music is muffled and doesn’t even seem to come from the living room.  
A quick look confirms that there is no one there, so he knocks on Sherlock’s bedroom door and opens it, but it’s empty, and yet the sound doesn’t come from there, too.  
His thirst forgotten, John goes down to the entrance, where the sound of the musical instrument is stronger, and he realizes it comes from 221C. Puzzled, he opens the door of the small flat and goes down the few steps: Sherlock is standing in the middle of the empty living room and he’s playing with his eyes closed.  
"Sherlock?" John whispers, and the melody stops instantly.  
"John, what are you doing here?"  
"I was thirsty, and I went down to drink a glass of water."  
"The wine. I told you it was very strong."  
John will not be a genius, but he understands when someone is trying to deflect, and that's exactly what Sherlock is doing.  
"Why are you playing here?"  
Sherlock shrugs, nervous and on the defensive. "I know that when I play the the violin in the middle of the night, it annoys you because I wake you up, so I asked Mrs Hudson to give me the keys of 221C, which is not rented to anyone at the moment. I was just trying to be considerate."  
"Ah well, thank you, then. If you’re fine, I'll go back to sleep."  
"I am. Goodnight John."  
"Night."  
In fact, John isn’t entirely convinced that everything is all right, and, as he falls asleep, he realizes that he has asked the wrong question to Sherlock: he shouldn’t ask him why he was playing in the 221C, but why he is playing, full stop, since Sherlock resorts to the violin only when some thought torments him.  
John is increasingly confident that there is something his friend is not telling him.  
  
In the days that followed, the ex-soldier hasn’t much time to ponder on Sherlock's strange nocturnal habits, as they don’t sleep much: a very interesting and intricate case finally comes to rescue the consulting detective from boredom, a brutal kidnapping with lives at stake, that comes to an end with a pursuit in London's alleys and John knocking down and neutralizing the two kidnappers.  
As they walk back to Baker Street, John feels vibrant and full of energy due to the adrenaline still running in his blood; Sherlock looks straight in front of him, but occasionally he throws side glances to him and smiles, and John knows that he is sharing his own euphoria, he is probably the only person in the world who can understand how it feels.  
"Lot of people would think I’m a reckless fool, but I could never give up this."  
Investigations, mysteries, risk, danger: in a word, their life.  
"Lot of people are stupid," Sherlock says. "Dinner?"  
"Yes, I'm starving."  
  
About a month later, however, London's crime seems dead: Sherlock devotes himself to his bizarre chemical experiments, because at the moment there are no dangerous criminals to hunt down.  
One morning John decides to do the laundry, because he has to to leave to Dublin for a medical conference and he urgently needs clean underwear.  
"Sherlock, I’m loading the washing machine, have you something to wash, too?"  
The detective is concentrated on the microscope, observing what looks like a colony of fungus spores and doesn’t show that he has heard John.  
"Sherlock!" John tries again, but in vain: Sherlock is lost in his mycotic world, so John goes in his bedroom to see if there's something to wash, but what he sees makes him frown: Sherlock is not a tidy man, their living room, with Mrs Hudson's great sorrow, is a constant, unstoppable chaos, but usually his bedroom is kept in an almost military tidiness. But now the blankets are tangled at the bottom of the bed, sheets are rumpled and the mattress is bare, the pillow is on the ground near the pajamas, and when John touches it, he finds it drenched in sweat.  
He knows very well what he’s watching, because the same thing happened to him countless times, when he came back from Afghanistan: Sherlock had a nightmare, a terrifying nightmare, judging by the state of the bed, and probably it’s not the first time that it happens.  
The nightmares would explain his nervousness and why he is awake in the middle of the night, even though he has no case to think about. Sherlock has never told him what he did in the two years he was away from London, John doesn’t know exactly what he did (or what he had to do) or if he was traumatized. But maybe he should ask: he knows how horrible nightmares can be, and he doesn’t want Sherlock to suffer what he has gone through.  
Back in the kitchen, John sits in front of Sherlock, moves aside the microscope, until he catches the attention of his friend, who looks at him with an annoyed face.  
"John, time is an essential component of this experiment"  
"Are you having nightmares, Sherlock?" he prompts.  
"No," Sherlock answers in a detached and neutral voice, but John doesn’t believe it.  
"I saw your bed, I did the same when I was assaulted by nightmares."  
"I had only one bad dream, in which I couldn’t complete this experiment, and now it's going to be a reality," Sherlock pointed out, taking back the microscope. "There’s really nothing to worry about."  
_"Wrong move, Watson,"_ John reproaches himself: he faced the subject in such a direct way, that Sherlock has raised his defenses.  
John isn’t angry and doesn’t blame him: after all he did exactly the same with his therapist. He has to find another way to talk to him, and now he shouldn’t push, he wouldn’t get anything.  
"Okay, but if you want to talk to me, you can."  
"I know, but there’s really nothing to talk about."  
  
John is not thrilled to go to Dublin knowing that Sherlock is suffering from nightmares, especially because Mrs. Hudson is away, visiting her sister, but in the end he can do nothing but remind him to eat regularly and not get in trouble, and then leaves.  
The conference is tedious and John spends more time exchanging messages with Sherlock than listening to the speakers. Sherlock always responds promptly to his messages, even when John writes them late in the night. It means that his friend is awake, but, after all, he is too, and perhaps he's really worrying for anything.  
However, it’s a relief for him to come back to London on the morning of the fourth day.  
He pays the cab, opens the black door of 221B and immediately realizes that something is wrong, because there is a strong burning smell in the air. It’s true that sometimes Sherlock’s scientific experiments involve fire, but the smell is really too strong to be the case. John abandons the suitcase in the landing, climbs the steps, and gets even more alarmed when he sees the blue smoke puffs stretching under the door.  
He slams the door open and is forced to cover his face with the sleeve of the jacket, due to a dense cloud of smoke and a strong heat that invest him.  
"Sherlock!"  
Careless of the danger, he makes his way into the living room and his heart loses a beat at the sight of Sherlock lying on the couch, motionless. Without thinking of anything else, carries him on a shoulder and rushes down; once in the street he calls an ambulance and firefighters, then bends over to Sherlock: he is breathing, but is unconscious, probably due to the smoke he inhaled. The ambulance comes in a few minutes, but it seems like an eternity to John: paramedics bring Sherlock to the hospital and John goes with him; meanwhile he calls Lestrade and tells him about the fire, asking to go to Baker Street and investigate whether it was a criminal act.  
Fortunately, Sherlock wakes up shortly after arriving at the hospital, and seems to be fine. John waits impatiently in the corridor for the doctors to check on him, and walk back and forth.  
After a few hours Lestrade calls him.  
"Hey, how's Sherlock?"  
"Doctors are visiting him now, but he seems to be fine. What about the fire?"  
"The firefighters put it out, fortunately it was only at the beginning and it didn’t damage the structure of the building, but the furnishings in Sherlock's bedroom are burnt down. It seems that everything started from a short-circuit in the lamp on his bedside table, it’s not an arson. Anyway,” the DI sighs heavily “it’s strange that Sherlock didn’t notice it: did someone hit on the head or was he narcotized?  
"Doctors exclude that."  
"So... you know..."  
Yes, John knows exactly what Greg's referring to: drugs. They would explain why Sherlock didn’t wake up while the house was on fire, but Christ, John hoped that chapter of his life was over.  
"I'll ask to see the results of his blood and urine tests, and I'll let you know."  
"Thank you. Call me if you need anything else."  
However, contrary to John’s inauspicious predictions, Sherlock's tests are absolutely clean, there isn’t the slightest trace of drugs in his body. The news should only make him happy, but it doesn’t; of course he is happy that Sherlock hasn’t take drugs, and he feels guilty because he suspected him, but then what could have happened?  
John enters the room, where a nurse is battling with Sherlock to make him keep the oxygen mask on his face, and asks her to leave them alone. As soon as the woman leaves, Sherlock takes off the mask and tries to get up, but John tacks him down on the bed with his eyes and the index pointing at him.  
"No, you will leave only when the doctors will give you the permission. And put on the mask, you risk to die choked!"  
"You're overeacting."  
"I'm... Sherlock, what would happen if I didn’t get there?"  
"Sooner or later I would wake up."  
"Sooner or later…” John clutches his fists and slams them on his tights, “And what if it was too late?"  
"Oh, you have been scared," Sherlock looks down, putting diligently the mask back on his face.  
"Obviously, you idiot!” he yells, then takes some deep breaths to calm himself and sits next to the bed. “Your tests are clean."  
"I know," Sherlock interrupts him in a brisk tone that makes John wince.  
"Then tell me, how didn’t you realize that the flat was on fire?"  
"I fell asleep."  
"So deeply?"  
It’s true that when Sherlock has a case, he stays awake for days, and eventually he collapses on the bed, almost catatonic, and can sleep for fourteen hours or more, but Sherlock has no cases right now. Were the nightmares to keep him awake while John was in Dublin?  
"Have you had trouble sleeping in the past few days?"  
Sherlock shrugs, but eventually admits, "Yes, a bit."  
"You hadn’t write anything to me about it."  
"It’s not important."  
John bites his lower lip: they’ve been exchanging messages about everything, including ideas for Mrs. Hudson's birthday present, which will take place in several months, but Sherlock doesn’t think it’s important to talk about nightmares that don’t let him sleep.  
"You're wrong," John objects, "It is."  
"I didn’t want to bother you."  
“Sherlock, your health is never a bother, don’t even think about it, are we clear?"  
John lays his left hand on his and Sherlock lowers his eyes on the blanket, astonished by John’s gesture.  
"John?"  
"Mh?"  
"Thank you for taking me out of the flat."  
"Don’t even say that."  
  
Sherlock is released in the evening and John promises to the doctors to check on him, to see that he hasn’t any breathing problems.  
Firefighters virtually flooded their flat to put out the fire: Sherlock's bedroom is a wreck and will be for days, and also in the living room everything is drenched in water, including the couch and armchairs, carpets look like huge sponges and the walls emanate an unpleasant smell of wet tapestry.  
"What a mess," John mumbled.  
"Mh, it looks like I'll have to use the 221C not just to play, but also to sleep."  
"What? No!” John yells, “Sherlock, that flat is even more unhealthy and damp than this, and where will you sleep? There is no bed or couch down there."  
Sherlock shrugs.  
"On the floor. When I was on mission I slept in much worse places."  
"I don’t care, now we're not in the steppe or in a forest."  
"So what do you suggest?"  
"You will sleep with me," John responds promptly.  
Sherlock freezes like a deer blinded by a car's headlights and bites his lips.  
"John, I don’t think it's a good idea."  
"Why? It's not the first time we do it."  
Before Sherlock faked his death, they slept outside London for a case several times and they had to share the bed in a couple of occasion, due to a booking mistake (people have the weird habit of considering them a couple) so he doesn’t understand why Sherlock is now reluctant to the bedsharing.  
"I don’t wanna wake you."  
With one of his nightmares, it's the subtexts. Those that Sherlock pretends not to have.  
"Sherlock, it’s okay."  
Indeed, it might be a good time to talk about them.  
"But…"  
"Believe me, it's fine. And then I can look at you as I promised to the doctors."  
John can be unshakable when he wants, and this is one of those times, he hasn’t even to raise his voice to be obeyed, all it takes it’s his look and posture: Sherlock will sleep in his bed and there are no other options, so in the end the consulting detective must surrender.  
Sherlock will have to renew all his wardrobe, burned in the fire, so John gives him one of his pajamas, but the effect on Sherlock is incredibly comical: the pajamas are wide of waist and shoulders, but sleeves and legs are too short.  
"Not a word," Sherlock mumbled, obviously embarrassed. John is tempted to take a photo with his phone to blackmail and threaten him to send it to Mycroft or Lestrade for when he leaves his experiments on the kitchen table or human remains in the fridge, but the redness on his face makes John desist: he's not so cruel.  
"Do you have a favorite side where to sleep?"  
"No, as I told you I slept everywhere, it’s indifferent to me."  
"All right, I just hope you don’t steal the blankets."  
After wishing him goodnight, Sherlock lies on the edge of the mattress and shrugs, while John decides to stay awake to read a novel Mike has lent to him. Sitting with his back resting against the wall, he can see Sherlock's eyelashes flickering: either he has trouble falling asleep or the idiot is thinking of staying awake all night to avoid nightmares.  
"I tried it, too" John confesses, putting a bookmark between the pages, “But it doesn’t work: in the end, sleep always wins."  
Sherlock gets stiff and then sighs annoyed. "I can’t bear to not have control over my transport."  
"I understand."  
"Really?"  
"Yes, better than anyone else."  
"Maybe yes," he admits.  
John puts the book on the bedside table and tries to tackle the subject again. "While you were on mission, did something happened to you? Something traumatic?"  
"No, it’s not what you think."  
"So what is it?"  
This time Sherlock doesn’t answer and stubbornly closes his eyes, so in the end John turns off the light and falls asleep.  
  
He feels hot, but it’s not the overwhelming and sticky warm of Afghanistan, loaded with death memories, it’s a nice and welcoming warmth, like a fireplace, a blanket placed on his shoulders, the sun on his skin. John emerges slowly from sleep, opens his eyes and finds himself very close to the blue cotton pajamas he has given to Sherlock. During the night they moved, and somehow John ended up buried in Sherlock's bear hug, and the other man now holds him crushed against his chest. It’s a new and strange situation for John, all the other times he has slept with a (female) partner, he has always been the embracing one, the one having a dominant role, but the now position doesn’t trouble him at all. It’s… quite pleasant, to tell the truth.  
In his sleep, Sherlock turns on his back and John takes advantage of it and gets up; it's only when he's in the the shower that he realizes that Sherlock hadn’t any nightmares the previous night: John has a very light sleep (a legacy of his military past) and the slightest noise or movement on the mattress is enough to wake him up, but Sherlock had a quiet night of uninterrupted sleep. And John is very happy about it.  
  
Workers who come that morning to make an inspection of the flat say that it will take several days of work for repairs: they can bring away right now the burnt furnishings, but before putting on the new wallpaper, they have to wait for the walls to dry for good.  
So it seems that the forcible sharing of John's bed will continue.  
"If for you it's a problem, I can go to sleep in a motel until it's all set up," Sherlock proposes as he prepares tea for both of them.  
"I told you it's not a problem."  
"But we didn’t know that the renovation would take so long."  
"Sherlock, one, ten or one hundred nights make no difference to me: as I said, it’s all fine."  
Sherlock looks at him with wide eyes, and John realizes that his statement is undoubtedly very bold; he said it without thinking too much about it, but the statement came from his heart and it’s truth.  
Since Sherlock has returned to London, John feels reborn, he has seen his greatest desire to have his old life come true: he and Sherlock living together in Baker Street and solving crimes. Frankly, he sees no other horizons for his life at the moment and doubts that it will change in the future.  
Sherlock lowers his eyes on his cup of tea and just nods in a mute thank you.  
  
The second night begins like the first one, with Sherlock lying on his side trying to stay awfully awake, but John sees his eyelids getting heavier and heavier until they close completely, and it’s show much more Interesting than the novel he's reading; John watches him for a long time, before turning off the light and lying slowly, trying not to disturb him.  
The next morning, John woke up again with Sherlock clinging to him, as if he were the human variant of an octopus or a climbing plant.  
Even this night passed peacefully and without nightmares for him.  
It’s early and John doesn’t need the loo, so he closes his eyes and listen to Sherlock's heartbeat until he falls asleep again.  
In the following days the scenario repeats itself, with the only difference that Sherlock is less and less reluctant to fall asleep, and increasingly relaxed in John's little bed, almost if he has slept there for a lifetime.  
In the morning, John always finds Sherlock draped on him, sometimes he’s spooning him, sometimes they’re face to face, sometimes the curly head is resting on his back or on his stomach, and John often has to resist the temptation to pet his hair, because it would wake him up, and he thinks that it would be nice if the renovation works of the flat would never end.  
And Sherlock's nightmares no longer came back.  
Their routine is interrupted the day the workers finish settling down the living room and Sherlock’s bedroom.  
"Tonight I'm back in my room," Sherlock announces over breakfast.  
"Are you sure? I think the smell of wallpaper glue is still very strong."  
It's a ridiculous excuse and John knows it well: the windows downstairs have remained open for two days and the smell is barely perceptible, but he was used to the presence of Sherlock in his bed and a part of him discovers, without much surprise, that he will miss that accommodation.  
"It’s bearable, and then I've taken advantage of your hospitality for too long."  
John presses his lips together and nods: everything is like it was before, so there's no reason (or excuse) to sleep together. He looks up at Sherlock and the first thing he notices is that the corners of his lips are turned down contritely: he’s not happy to return to his bedroom, too.  
They look at each other, Sherlock opens his mouth and clicks shut again, and John believes he has found an excuse to keep sleeping together, but in the end Sherlock gets up from the table.  
"I have to go and pick up the clothes I ordered."  
"Ah... sure. And I have to go to work, "John answers with a pulled smile that does nothing to hide his disappointment.  
"John?" Sherlock stops when he’s already at the door.  
"Yes?"  
"Dinner at Angelo’s tonight?"  
There are no solved cases or other anniversaries to celebrate, but maybe it's his way to say something to John, something he can’t tell him with words.  
"Yes, gladly."  
He isn’t very good with words, too.  
  
Dinner is nice: they don’t speak much, because there’s nothing remarkable and no news to talk about, they just enjoy good food and the reciprocal company and it's perfect, so much that while they’re back at 221B, John would really like to find an excuse to prolong the evening, but in the end words escape him again, and he just wish Sherlock good night.  
But that night John is struggling: he tries to finish the novel on the bedside table, but he read few page and then gets distracted by the empty side of the bed; he look at it, then turns off the light, searches a comfortable position, but even when he falls asleep, it's a very light sleep.  
At some point during the night he wakes up and sits up, as if he has perceived a danger. He listens carefully in the dark, and shortly afterwards he hears a watery moan, muffled by the closed door, but he immediately realizes that it’s Sherlock, and the moan is so sad and desperate that John has no hesitation to go downstairs and enter his bedroom.  
Sherlock is still asleep, but he is tossing on the bed, kicking and moving his arms under the sheets, his face is sweaty and a painful expression deforms his features.  
"Please," he babbles in uncertain voice, "don’t go. I'll do whatever you want, but stay, STAY!" The moan becomes a cry, but Sherlock doesn’t wake up yet, continuing to stir in vain, prisoner of the nightmare.  
John reaches him, puts a knee on the mattress and grabs his wrists to calm him, then begins to call him in a soft voice, not to shock him further.  
"Sherlock, Sherlock wake up."  
After a few seconds Sherlock opens his eyes, though it takes a few seconds for him to focus.  
"It's all right, you're awake now."  
Sherlock takes a deep breath, then smiles awkwardly.  
"I’m sorry to have bothered you. Probably it’s the new mattress, I'm not used to it."  
John let his wrists go, then sits on the edge of the bed and sighs.  
"Now I could pretend I believe you, I could look for an excuse, telling you that I need to use your laptop and stay here with you until you fall asleep again. Or we can talk about why you have these nightmares."  
"John, they’re just some bad dreams, there's no reason to make a mountain out of a molehill."  
"It's not true, they’re nightmares so scary that you do everything you can not to fall asleep and succumb to them. If you tell me what happened to you when you were away... "  
Sherlock passes a hand through his sweaty curls.  
"I told you that's not that."  
"You have never had any nightmares before, then what is it that terrorizes you so much?"  
Joh will not go away until he has an answer, he looks at him with relentless calm, and at last Sherlock whispers a single syllable: "You."  
John winces as if someone has slapped him and he’s going to get up, but Sherlock holds him by the pajamas sleeve.  
"It's not what you're thinking." He sighs and closes his eyes, "Ever since I came back, I still have nightmares where you go away."  
"Go? Where?"  
"Anywhere, far from here, and you don’t come back."  
"Oh."  
"Sometimes you get married, sometimes you have a family with lots of kids, sometimes you just go to live elsewhere, but the constant of my nightmares is that you don’t want to have anything to do with me anymore."  
John is quite shocked, because his nightmares were much more bloody: bleeding wounds, mutilations, soldiers dropped dead under the sun tore apart by stray dogs. The idea that his leaving could upset Sherlock to the point of causing his nightmares leaves him speechless; sure, at first, when he discovered that Sherlock was alive, John was angry, but he never really thought to leave forever, Sherlock is too important and John believed he knew it.  
_"And how, you idiot? You have never talked for real about it, you never said you wanted to stay."_  
If nothing else, now John understands some of Sherlock's behaviors of the last period: Sherlock waiting up when John has a date, playing the violin in the 221C to not annoy him, Sherlock who was reluctant to sleep together because he was bothering John, inviting him to dinner when he sees that John is unhappy.  
All gestures to soothe his eventual anger and keep him at Baker Street.  
Another thing is clear to John: all the time he and Sherlock have slept together, Sherlock hadn’t any nightmares, nightmares that came back when he returned to his bedroom.  
"About that," Sherlock says, reading John's thoughts, "I believe that my subconscious perceives your physical presence during sleep, and it calms me down."  
"Yes, I think so. So is this your biggest fear, me leaving?" John asks again, to be sure he understood it: he has never been so important to someone.  
"Yes, since I jumped from Barts. I'm sorry."  
"What? You’ve nothing to be sorry about. And, Sherlock, I'm not going anywhere, do you know that?"  
"For now," Sherlock whispers, lowering his eyes.  
"Well, I can assure you that my 'now' is pretty permanent, so even if dining out is great, and not hearing the violin at three o'clock in the morning is even greater, you haven’t to elaborate plans to make me stay: I stay here because I want to stay."  
Sherlock's eyes remain dubious, so John puts a hand on his shoulder and pushes.  
"Move."  
"But…"  
"C’mon, move!"  
He raises the duvet and goes under, but Sherlock doesn’t stop to protest.  
"John, you shouldn’t feel forced to do something just because I have nightmares, over time I will learn to handle them, I promise."  
It’s John's turn to wrap Sherlock into his hug, though he is smaller than him; Sherlock's head fits perfectly under his neck, and when John leans his chin on the dark, fluffy curls, he exhales a satisfied sigh.  
"Does it seems to you that I feel forced in any way?"  
Sherlock breathes slowly on his pajamas, then shakes his head.  
"This morning I was looking desperately for an excuse, any excuse to keep sleeping together, and I hoped you were telling me something" says John.  
"I was going to, but it seemed inappropriate and I had no idea how you would react."  
"Like that."  
John lowers his head and kisses Sherlock’s forehead.  
"John..."  
Sherlock raises his face to John’s, and they stay like this, breaths mingling, the warmth radiating from their faces, their eyelashes barely touching, until John moves a few millimeters and gently brushes his lips against Sherlock’s, before returning to lean his chin on his curls.  
For now it’s enough, they will have time to talk and to kiss seriously.  
"Sleep Sherlock, sleep without fear, because I will always be here to protect you from nightmares."


End file.
